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Linus: Don't bother with grsecurity. Their patches are pure garbage

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31–40 of 172 posts

Re: Linus: Don't bother with grsecurity. Their patches are pure garbage

#31
post #6

Grsecurity wouldn't exist if Linux made security a priority. It doesn't, because backwards compatibility and features is more important to them. It doesn't mean because Linus says something so strongly on a subject is right or wrong, he is generally abusive and rants and has for years. Grsecurity is important to some people, not all, and vice versa for the features and backwards compatibility crowd. Personally I'd ho…

And without backwards compatibility you would have never heard of Linux.

Re: Linus: Don't bother with grsecurity. Their patches are pure garbage

#32

This is just celebrity gossip/hype/flaming. Nothing new, interesting, or intellectually curious here.

I have to agree with this given the post. If Linus had a concrete example rather than just his sweeping condemnation, it would be different.

Re: Linus: Don't bother with grsecurity. Their patches are pure garbage

#34

Linus, and this stubborn attitude of his, is the reason that Linux will always lag behind Windows in kernel security. With the vast security improvements Microsoft are putting into their operating system year on year, it's a shame to see Linux failing to keep up.

>Linux will always lag behind Windows in kernel security Are you serious about that statement ?

I'm not going to agree or disagree on this, but Microsoft's choice to shove all syscalls into a DLL where a defined ABI is easier to maintain certainly makes dramatic security improvements to the kernel easier without breaking userspace.

Re: Linus: Don't bother with grsecurity. Their patches are pure garbage

#36
post #10

See Linus' follow-up http://seclists.org/oss-sec/2017/q2/596 for clarification: > They aren't split up, there has never been any effort by you to make them palatable to upstream, and when somebody else dioes try to make them palatable to upstream, you start crying about how people are taking advantage of your work (hah), and try to make them private instead. ... > It's literally less work for people to re-implement t…

And the other guy's reply: http://seclists.org/oss-sec/2017/q2/597

> Just like you spend your time focusing on versions of Linux nobody actually uses (they use stable kernels or distro kernels) but which benefits your corporate sponsors and maintains the churn you want to force everyone to contribute to. The days of Linux being a community project are long gone, it's a fairy tale at this point.

Clearly a load of crap. I think they should quit being spicy and think about what they should be doing instead.

Re: Linus: Don't bother with grsecurity. Their patches are pure garbage

#37
post #10

See Linus' follow-up http://seclists.org/oss-sec/2017/q2/596 for clarification: > They aren't split up, there has never been any effort by you to make them palatable to upstream, and when somebody else dioes try to make them palatable to upstream, you start crying about how people are taking advantage of your work (hah), and try to make them private instead. ... > It's literally less work for people to re-implement t…

And the other guy's reply: http://seclists.org/oss-sec/2017/q2/597

"Days of our lives" Linux kernel edition.

Do many people have a taste for kernel drama and Linus antics? I mostly just want the software.

Re: Linus: Don't bother with grsecurity. Their patches are pure garbage

#38

This is just celebrity gossip/hype/flaming. Nothing new, interesting, or intellectually curious here.

I have to agree with this given the post. If Linus had a concrete example rather than just his sweeping condemnation, it would be different.

If there had been concrete examples and such, rational argument (hopefully) would have ensued, and HN would not have been notified about a completely normal engineering discussion down in the weeds. But seeing condemnation and drama works better for post material I suppose.

Re: Linus: Don't bother with grsecurity. Their patches are pure garbage

#40
So, just to confirm I see this correctly:

Grsecurity creates patches for issues in upstream, but their patches are too fucking big/ugly, so nobody upstream really wants to merge them, and when someone tries to fix em (take the important bits out), grsecurity complains about them using their work.

Grsecurity then say they don't feel like doing a lot of work on their patches when they're not paid to do it.

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